Stoning to death now punishment for adultery in Aceh

"Indonesia's province of Aceh has passed a new law making adultery punishable by stoning to death, a member of the province's parliament has said.

The law also imposes severe sentences for rape, homosexuality, alcohol consumption and gambling. "

"Married people convicted of adultery can be sentenced to death by stoning. Unmarried people can be sentenced to 100 lashes with a cane. "

Unfortunately sharia law has been spreading in Indonesia over the past 10 years. Laws implemented, not just in Aceh, but in other parts of Indonesia, include those requiring women to wear 'modest' dress, and enforcing the scarf. These laws are inspried by Saudi extremists, who disperse their oil-fuelled hatred across the globe, to places like Indonesia that have traditionally had their own more-tolerante practices.

"The Vespa Girls used to be an institution at the University of Indonesia (UI). Back in the 1970s, these daughters of elite families would take breaks from their studies at Indonesia's best university by cruising on Italian two-wheelers, their miniskirts grazing their upper thighs. Sometimes, certain Vespa Girls wore no underwear. Today's UI, still the state-run breeding ground for the nation's future leaders, is a very different place. Half the female student body striding across the campus near Jakarta wear the jilbab, a Muslim scarf that covers the head and neck. Student politics is dominated by the Campus Propagation Institute, an Islamic group that offers religious mentoring and encourages students to adhere to Shari'a, or Islamic law. Female faculty in the Department of Medicine, irrespective of their religion, are barred from wearing short skirts, while those in Humanities must eschew tight pants and low necklines. "This university is supposed to be secular, but it has become an Islamic zone," says Gadis Arivia, a UI lecturer in philosophy. "It's no different from the rest of the country."

Indonesia is undergoing a spiritual revolution. Since the 1998 fall of strongman Suharto, who during his 32-year rule suppressed not only political freedom but any faith that could challenge his authority, the country has re-embraced its religiosity. In 2004, Indonesia held its first-ever direct presidential election, shattering the notion that Islam and democracy are incompatible. Yet that same open system of politics has encouraged a flowering of conservative religious thought and allowed the rise of homegrown terrorists, threatening the country's reputation as a model of moderate Islam"

"43 year old Pujiono Cahyo Widayanto/Widianto, aka Syech/Syekh Puji, the head of an Islamic boarding school (Ponpes Miftahul Jannah) in Bedono, Jambu, Semarang, Central Java, in August 2008 informally married (nikah siri) Lutfiana Ulfa, 11 years and 10 months old, who had just begun studies at a local junior high school, but has now taken up wifely duties at home.

He also intends to marry two other girls, aged 9 and 7. Of these latter two, Syech Puji says that neither has begun menstruating, so he will refrain from interfering with them, while Ulfa has already entered puberty.

Syech Puji believes his actions have a legitimate basis in Islam, considering that the prophet Muhammad married the 7 year old Aisha.

I'm not just doing what I like, it's based in religion. It's in accordance with the prophet's teaching. You can marry a 7 year old if you like but you can't have relations with her until she starts menstruating.

One supporting voice is that of politician Hilman Rosyad Syihab from the Islamist Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (PKS), who says that marrying young girls is allowed within Islam provided the marriages are not consummated until the girl has begun menstruating."

There is also the case of SETIA, a Christian College in East Jakarta, which was established 25 years ago in what was then a rural area, but now is in the middle of a Muslim community.

'Two SETIA students, Julius Koli and Jonny Gontoh, returned to their dormitory to find a large rat, and one of them threw his sandal at it. The sandal fell onto a neighbors property, and when the two went there to retrieve the sandal, area residents shouted Thieves!'

'By midnight mobs had formed and were attacking two male dormitories. At 2:30 a.m., mobs had reached the third floor of one of the dormitories and were trying to burn it down. Local sources said that when they set the building on fire, gasoline spilled onto the leg of one of the attackers, and they ran away.

Another mob attacked the main building of SETIA with stones. Male students threw the stones back at them, and by 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning (July 26) local policemen arrived.

That night, area residents and Muslim extremist groups made their way past police checkpoints and some of them armed with metal clubs and machetes broke into a womens dormitory, where male students had been transferred after female students were relocated. While the attackers ransacked the dormitory, those outside threw tear gas and home-made Molotov cocktail bombs at the structure.

Evacuations of students began that night. On Sunday evening (July 27), as police were further evacuating students and staff members, the attackers slashed some male students with swords. At least 17 students received treatment for injuries at the Christian University Indonesia Hospital Cawang, East Jakarta.'

The Islamic Defenders Front had previously held demonstrations at the college, saying that it was growing too big, and in 2007 200 Muslims set fire to the premises of construction workers who were building a new dormitory.

Worse incidents have happened in Poso, where Arab-trained jihadists (of Jemaah Islamiyah, the terrorist group responsible for high profile attacks in Bali and Jakarta, mong others) have fermented hate between Christian and Muslim residents, resulting in numerous deaths, and culminating in the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls as a celebration of Ramadan.